{"id":842997,"date":"2026-06-04T04:23:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/842997\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T04:23:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:23:18","slug":"former-nutrition-agency-head-arrested-in-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/842997\/","title":{"rendered":"Former nutrition agency head arrested in Indonesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) \u2014 Indonesia\u2019s recently dismissed head of the National Nutrition Agency was arrested on Wednesday on corruption charges related to a multi-billion-dollar free-meals program.<\/a><\/p>\n

The program delivered on a campaign promise of President Prabowo Subianto<\/a> and aimed to fight malnutrition by feeding nearly 90 million children and pregnant women. But it has come under steep criticism due to high costs and cases of food poisoning<\/a> among schoolchildren who consumed the meals.<\/p>\n

Prabowo fired Dadan Hindayana on Tuesday and replaced him with the agency\u2019s deputy chief. Investigators searched the agency\u2019s offices early Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Before Indonesia\u2019s Attorney General\u2019s Office made Wednesday\u2019s arrest announcement, Hindaya could be seen being led out in handcuffs, wearing a detainee red vest and a black shirt, and escorted into a green prison van.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors also arrested two other suspects, Sony Sonjaya, the Deputy Head of the Nutrition Provision Division and Lodewyk Pusung, the Deputy Head of the Organizational Development and Institutional Relations Division. Both were fired on Tuesday. Prosecutors only published their initials, but the Minister of the State Secretariat, Prasetyo Hadi, shared their names with reporters.<\/p>\n

Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, AGO\u2019s Director of Investigation, told reporters that based on the \u201cexamination … and two pieces of sufficient evidence,\u201d the three were named as suspects \u201cin the criminal investigation of corruption related to the management of the Free Nutritious Meal program at the National Nutrition Agency for the 2025\u20132026 period.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Free Nutritious Meal program is implemented through foundations operating in schools. Investigators allege these foundations were used to facilitate criminal activities and were linked to agency officials and employees. Despite failing to meet the eligibility requirements to become program partners, they were allegedly approved by manipulating the agency\u2019s partner verification system, with the suspects\u2019 help, Nahdi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese foundations receive incentives worth billions of rupiah every day,\u201d he said, adding that investigators are still calculating the damage to state coffers.<\/p>\n

Hadi said Tuesday the three suspects were dismissed for failing to adhere to \u201cstandard operating procedure … implementing governance, including maintaining food quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadi stressed the government\u2019s continuing commitment to the free meals program. \u201cServices to the public must not be disrupted in any way,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

The meals program is expected to cost $28 billion through 2029. <\/p>\n

One of Prabowo\u2019s goals was to fight malnutrition and help farmers by purchasing their harvests, but critics had questioned whether the program was affordable and logistically possible in a vast archipelago of more than 282 million people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) \u2014 Indonesia\u2019s recently dismissed head of the National Nutrition Agency was arrested on Wednesday on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":842998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[13214,64,245,17628,9062,57,210,3497,4228,9996,2936,50,1182,17472,47502,24131,103,107],"class_list":["post-842997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-asia-pacific","tag-business","tag-children","tag-corruption","tag-food-safety","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-humanitarian-crises","tag-indictments","tag-indonesia","tag-law-enforcement","tag-news","tag-nutrition","tag-poisoning","tag-prabowo-subianto","tag-pregnancy-and-childbirth","tag-world","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116689935613368923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}